On
Sunday, Archbishop Timothy
Dolan appeared on 60
Minutes. He serves as the President of the U.S. Conference on Catholic
Bishops, and holds great power over the thinking of the Church.

During
the interview, Morley Safer questioned him about the possibility that
allowing priests to marry serve might reduce child sexual abuse. Without
hesitation, Archbishop Dolan said "the greatest culprits in sexual
abuse are, unfortunately, married men."

Due
to his position and power, Archbishop Dolan either knows or should know
what he is talking about. So it is reasonable to hold him responsible
for what he says.

Peer-reviewed
studies on child sexual abuse consistently find that children raised
in intact married families are, by a significant factor, in the lowest
risk group for child sexual abuse (NIS-4,
p5-22).

“Children
living with two married biological parents had the lowest rate of Harm
Standard maltreatment at 6.8 per 1,000 children…Children living
with one parent who had an unmarried partner in the household had the
highest incidence of Harm Standard maltreatment (57.2 per 1,000). Their
rate is more than 8 times greater than the rate for children living
with two married parents.”

Children
are most often sexually abused when living in cohabiting relationships
with an unrelated partner, or by unrelated males. Sexual abuse is also
higher when children are raised by married individuals who are not their
parents.

Archbishop
Dolan bore false witness against married men and weakened marriage itself.
Sexual dynamics are perhaps the most powerful panic buttons in law and
public policy. We need and expect the truth from leaders in politics,
religion, and law because the consequences of erroneous beliefs impact
millions.

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Dolan’s
position mimics marriage-phobic propaganda proffered by feminists for
decades. Now we have the Catholic Church talking like Gloria Steinem.
How many women of faith now erroneously suspect their husbands of child
sexual abuse and are looking under every rock to confirm those doubts?

As
a leader of the marriage movement, I call on Archbishop Dolan to publish
a letter of apology and correction, and request it be aired next week
on 60 Minutes. Beyond this, I call on the leadership of the Catholic
Church to move beyond pontification about the problems of marriage-absence
and begin working with us restoring heterosexual marriage as the social
norm.